00:11if you're divorced do you know that you might be eligible for spousal social security benefits well
00:17here to talk with me about this is allison doroski from life yield allison welcome
00:22hi bob thank you it's a pleasure to be here pleasure to have you here you recently wrote
00:26an article about this very topic for retirement daily daily we're eager to have you walk us
00:30through it yeah absolutely i'd love to so i recently talked in my latest article about
00:35social security divorce and survivor benefits i think that a lot of people think that when a
00:42marriage ends that's the end of your joint financial picture but that's really leaving a lot of
00:48potential benefit on the table for social security so you want to look at who's going to qualify first
00:53so the qualifications are through the social security administration you can find them on
00:58ssa.gov but they're going to be you have to have been married for at least 10 years you have
01:04to be at
01:05least 62 years old you cannot have been remarried and you must be eligible for a benefit on your ex's
01:14record which to qualify you would need to have a pia a primary insurance amount as outlined by the ssa
01:21that's less than half of what your ex's spouse's pia is so if your ex has filed you're then eligible
01:31to
01:31file for divorce spousal benefits from there so what if they haven't filed yet so if your ex has not
01:37filed yet there is a little loophole so as long as you have been married for you were married for
01:43at
01:43least 10 years you've been divorced for two you then in social security terms are called an independently
01:50entitled divorce spouse ieds so if you are an ieds that means that regardless of if your ex has filed
01:58or not you can file on their record so you can receive your divorce spousal benefit even if they're
02:05you're waiting and delaying their filing until they turn 70 you can still collect early
02:11you
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